


You owe me, little bird!

by starkeeper



Series: Reda Shepard [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Earthborn (Mass Effect), Gen, Pre-Mass Effect 1, Tenth Street Reds, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:17:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3890878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkeeper/pseuds/starkeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard owes to a lot of people, both from her past and from her present. And she is very aware of it.</p><p>Pictures from a past when she was all but Shepard, long before she was even given that opportunity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You owe me, little bird!

**Author's Note:**

> This started to be only a short idea and turned out to be half of the backstory of my Shepard. Or, at least some part. Will be the beginning of a series of works I'm writing for her. Hope you enjoy!

 

**2174 CE**

It was one of those conversations she had with Anderson again. Or rather Anderson had with her. Trying to figure out why she did what she did. If she only knew how to explain. If she could explain, she would. Maybe she didn’t understand it completely herself.

"I don't understand it, Shepard. Your CO keeps sending me updates about you – the whole lot of them positive – of how well you do, how well you master every task he can possibly think of, he even told me about that little contest you had last month with those third year graduating cadets – and then he tells me _as a side note_ he probably won’t promote you to _your_ third year because you’re always asking for trouble when not being brilliant. Why do you manage to end up in _this_ time after time? I don’t get it, child. Explain yourself." He sounded seriously upset this time.

Shepard listened quietly to what Anderson had to say. She knew she had been in trouble even before she got into it. And still it was– He would not understand. None of them probably would.

"Shepard? Have you heard me saying something of _not being promoted_?" Anderson did not intend to let her get away that easily this time. She knew that. Didn’t make it easier for her.

"I owe them, Sir."

A single attend to explain herself. Truth was always shorter than one expected.

"Owe _whom what_?" Anderson returned the question. Sometimes he asked himself just how much she _aimed_ to stretch his patience and how much she was not even aware of doing so.

" _Them_. _Me_. Everything." Shepard shrugged. It made absolutely no sense but to her it did. It sounded clinical the way she said it. As if it was no big deal. It was. To her it was just the biggest deal of her life so far. Owing them.

Anderson shook his head, being unsympathetic to both the fact she apparently got into it again and again _on purpose_ and the one she obviously didn’t want him to help her. "Talk to me, kid. How am I supposed to help if you don't-"

She interrupted him, aware of it would risk a serious warning under normal conditions. While Anderson wasn't de facto her direct superior, he still was a Commander. Leagues behind where she was ever going to get.

"I didn't ask for your help, Sir."

She had done, four years ago. He had helped. Now she was here, fighting back on her own. She didn't want him to get into her trouble.

Anderson sighed. She was one kind of a cadet. He hadn't seen such a promising young soldier in hell of a time. If only she wouldn’t be her own worst enemy once too often. When things became personal – and they did from time to time – it still seemed she lost every piece of professionalism she had gained in the last two years of military service. He had seen her taking two steps forward – and three back. "See, Shepard, I know you don't want anyone to mess around your business. But there are only these two options: Let me – or your CO, or whoever – help you, or keep your business out of duty. I won't be able to save your butt every time you blunder into this again."

She kept silent and gazed in her cup of tea in abstraction. At least he didn't do these conversations in front of her whole company. She didn't even remember how many times they had had this talk – a dozen, maybe? She was turning twenty in less than two months, almost ending her second year of service, and she _knew_ she was _good_. At least until she wasn't, like yesterday. She didn't know why Anderson protected her so much, or why she always received special treatment when she fucked it up again. Had she done anything to deserve that? She was not the helpless child anymore she once had been.

"May I ask you a question, Sir?"

"Go ahead."

"Why _are_ you saving my ass all the time _at all_ , Sir?" Imitating his choice of words, she was serious. She was always serious when she asked something.

She didn't expect Anderson’s reaction: he laughed.

"Why do you ask? Are you trying to see how far you can stretch?"

"No, Sir. I'm definitely not trying to get in trouble. Nor thrash out your goodwill." That was true. Still, things happened. Too often.

"And you shouldn't do, either. Because I can promise, even my authority comes to an end at some point. Can't keep everything off your records."

He hadn't answered her question yet. After all those years she still wanted to know. What had made him help her at first? What kept him doing so? Why _her_? Still, today she probably wouldn’t get her answers. As always. So she kept quiet and simply nodded. She was aware even his authority was limited. As was his goodwill at some point. She really didn't look out for trouble.

"Better cut your ties to what once was, Shepard", Anderson continued. “Finally.”

Obviously, her reasons were quite... obvious. Or he was just good at guessing.

"That’s difficult", she replied, not evading him.

"Because you _owe_ them?"

Shepard nodded.

"You owe nothing to no one, Shepard."

"Yes, Sir, I do. I owe you – just as much as I owe them. Owe him."

She was deadly serious about what she said. She owed Anderson just as much for getting her out of the street life with the Reds as she owed them for keeping her alive ever since she was a little child. And much as she wanted it to be different, she could not change it. She wouldn’t be alive anymore if they didn’t take her under their wings.

Anderson wanted to grab and shake her until she went back to reason again. He didn’t do, of course. Sharpening his voice, he said: "I need names, kid!" If she would give him just one of them, call one person she got in trouble with again and again, he could manage it. Legally.

But Shepard just smiled the noncommittal smile she had perfected over time. "No names, Sir. But thank you, Sir."

"It’s more than four years now, Shepard." He wouldn't stop trying. Not before she attended her affairs – whatever affairs – the one way or the other. "You have to stop it. You _do not_ owe them anything. _If_ you ever did, you do not do anymore. And you for sure don’t owe _me_. You got yourself out of that mess all by yourself." She had never talked much about her past. Whatever it was, he knew he couldn’t convince her of the contrary. Maybe he could at least talk her out of it. She had made it far in the last two years and he was sort of proud of her, comparing her to the broken, disorientated child she was when he met her. But then, she screwed it up again, and again, and again.

He rendered what he initially wanted to talk about. "I won't be around for some time, cadet. Try to not get in trouble for a while, won't you?" He had tried to grant his voice authority but couldn’t help ending up worried and protective again.

"Trying as always, Sir", she replied respectfully.

Anderson sighed again. She was one of the most serious, most compassionate persons he knew, smart, talented, always willing to give two hundred percent. And one of the most stubborn and in some kind most stupid, too.

"I'm serious about it, Reda."

Damn he was. She could tell by the fact that he had pretty much never used her first name how serious he was. It made her feel somewhat guilty.

"So am I, Sir”, she responded at the same pitch. “So am I.”

Anderson nodded. He believed her. He _wanted_ to believe her. He just worried he knew better.

 

* * *

 

**2167 CE**

_Never – and believe me I mean what I say –_ never _steal from a military. No matter how good you are, they will know. They're better than you. It will get your problem, and then it will end up being_ my _problem. And you don't want any of your problems to be my problem. Did I make myself clear?_

Oh, he had made himself clear that day. She remembered his grim face on that one, once she was old enough for serious jobs. She remembered both of them knowing how good she was and maybe he knew as well as she did that it was this knowledge what made her dangerous. It made her uncontrollable. He had tried to control her as long and as much as possible. Somewhen, she reached a point where it became difficult to fully control her.

 _They will know,_ she recalled. _They’re better than you._

She had waited. And she had never hoped more for him to be right.

 

* * *

 

**2169 CE**

It was some kind of spontaneous decision she made that day. There was no specific reason why it had to be exactly that day or exactly that place. She didn’t plan this, was not prepared. But it had to be _him_. The moment she saw him, she knew it had to be him.

Because _he_ would know. She was sure about that. She chose Anderson that day because she was sure he would know. Stop her. Get her out.

And so he did.

She remembered his hard grip on her wrist, his shrewd look, when she had made that very lame try to steal from him that late summer day in 2169. Of course he knew. He was military. She had known that even though he had been out in civvies that day. Shore leave, probably. Visiting his family, in case he had one. She imagined he had, a wife and two children. A little boy and a girl, just a little older, but old enough to be very aware of being his older sister. Protecting him. Making her parents proud. And still being that man’s little girl again the moment he came home after a long field work. That was the man she imagined him to be. Besides, she had played badly. Willfully. So even if he wasn’t as good as Marcus had said, he had to know.

"I don't believe you really want to do that, young lady", he had said to her, not relinquishing his grip.

 _Oh I'm sure I want_ , she'd thought.

He’d given her a careful once-over, then a lack of comprehension hit his face. "You're too smart for that, kid", he had said. No more. No less.

Yes, she was smart. That's why she decided it had to be him.

"You in some trouble?" Not an _in_ for _some trouble_. _In some trouble_. Maybe he _was_ smarter than he looked. Still the grip. She didn't fight it. "Need some help?"

At first she didn't say anything. Then she knew she ran out of time. What the hell was she doing here anyway? For a moment she began to doubt what she had gotten herself into again. She had to get out of here if she didn't want to end up in trouble. Damn huge trouble. "For sure I don't need your help." Her look was defiant, hiding the root taking fear inside of her. "Go call the security if you want to!" When he didn't react, she uttered a short hard laugh. "Well then, if you would relinquish me, Sir." She tried to get loose of his grip.

He hesitated for a moment and did how she’d said. Willingly. She'd thought he was smarter than that. Maybe she had been wrong.

Freed but still not moving she looked at him. Waited. It was all a laps of only some moments but to her it felt like minutes. Hours. She didn't know when she'd cross the line of still being credible.

Then, without a warning, he told her a series of numbers. Just once. And he added with a serious glance: "If something's up or if you need some help, call me." Just once. He didn't repeat what he'd said.

"Better take care of your belongings", she replied, still not sure whether or not to maintain her cover. The very moment when he reached out for his pocket, she already disappeared in the crowd. With some extra money, hopefully. She'd check out later what was in his purse.

Making her way back, she went over the number again.

_793-3669-207_

Maybe she'd found her way out in the end after all.

 

* * *

 

No matter what she had tried to pretend that evening, Marcus knew. He had his eyes everywhere, had people having eyes out for him everywhere, and he _knew_.

"So you think you’re gonna play with me, Reda? Who do you think I am?"

The first one hit her hard. His fist in her face, unexpected, brutally hard. She flinched, even though she had seen it coming. She had known he would be angry. She had mentally braced herself for it, but hadn’t been prepared at all. It didn’t help. It never did.

"Don't think I go easy on you." His voice was still cold and controlled, when he hit her again.

**_Two._ **

**_Three._ **

The next one went to her stomach. She coughed and tried to ignore the pain. She had known what would follow. She would handle it. She would get over it.

She tried to think about something nice. A comforting memory. Warm and cosy. Like... Hot chocolate on a winters eve. One moment to breath, to collect herself and get focused on nice things.

"But you don't, do you?" There was that smile again. That smile which meant bad things. Maybe it was worse than she had thought.

**_Four. Five._ **

They came in quick succession. She gasped for air heavily. _Think of hot chocolate_ , she told herself. _You’ll have hot chocolate later. When this is over. Doesn’t matter it’s not winter yet, you will have hot chocolate._

**_Six._ **

She saw stars.

 _Maureen_. Maureen was telling stories. Stories about them, those they have never had experienced in real life. Stories of a real home and a real family none of them had. Maureen was a good storyteller. She liked the older girl’s voice, soft and dark. It always calmed her down when she was frightened, or upset, or close to tears. It made her feel safe. It gave her some feeling of what _home_ could be. Someone telling uplifting stories.

His hand touched her cheek, almost tenderly. He smiled. Pitied her. Told her it was her own fault. He did not want to do this but he had to. Had to make her remember.

Then he hit her again. Right towards her solar plexus. If she hadn’t sat on that chair, she would have went down, simply collapsed.

"You won't do that again, will you?"

 _I won’t_ , she wanted to yell. _Hell if I do!_ She wanted to say something, anything, just to end this. She would pretend to give in, not even knowing herself if she really did or just played his game along. Whatever she would have to do, she would have done at that moment, because she knew he was everything but finished yet.

But he didn't let her.

**_Eight._ **

Maureen. Maureen was telling stories in her head. Her thoughts went head over heels.

_Once you were small, your parents had a present for you. They wanted to give something very special to their very special little girl, because for a long time-_

**_Nine._ **

She could not breathe. _Remember_ , she told herself. _Remember! Breathe!_

**_You're smarter than that._ **

Her head pulsed painfully. Her stomach was sore. Maureen’s voice faded. Something wet ran down her face, blood, most likely. Surely no tears, or was it?

"No, you won't." Marcus’ voice replaced every little rest of Maureen in her head. His hand was at her throat. He pulled her up, making it even harder for her to breath. His smile was gone. "I will make sure you won't forget."

 

* * *

 

She could hear the military speak before he stepped into her sight. She could hear everything, even though everybody endeavoured to be as silent as possible.

She had been awake long before she had heard the doors mechanical hissing, long before she heard him talking to the doctor in a hushed tone.

How much time had passed?

She heard them talking about Hallex, she had been on when they brought her to the hospital. Marcus used to do that so his... treatment was twice as intense and twice as painful as it would be anyways. But the Hallex also made her keep herself together longer, it made her less tired. This time, it had made her get here. Wherever _here_ was.

Then she heard them talking about the gang tattoo on her left wrist. _I know,_ was all he replied. His tone allowed no backtalk and the doctor didn’t give one. He had probably known she was in a gang from the very beginning.

And they talked about the scope of her injury. _Serious but not critical_. Possible mental injury. What did they know.

She kept her eyes closed, slowly breathing in and out. So she was in a hospital. She had been in a medical institution just one time before, though that was not in a clinic like this but a small local surgery downtown and it was only to visit a friend of hers. Now she was laying here, surrounded by machines and nurses and doctors talking about drugs and gangs and broken ribs and psychological traumata. She felt like she couldn’t care less. She didn’t feel broken ribs (she should, her head told her, breathing should hurt) nor a broken nose nor anything else. She didn’t feel traumatized. She just felt fuzzy-headed, like in a daze, as if one thing was just as important or unimportant as anything else.

Finally, the man came closer and stopped at the end of her bed. She gave him a tired look, not intending to play hide and seek and to pretend not to be awake. She was too tired to do so.

“I’m Lieutenant Commander David Anderson”, he introduced himself formally. His voice was calm and deep, not showing any sign of emotional concern, but his face did. She could tell he didn’t expect to see her like this. She didn’t know how bad she looked like exactly but she had been here before so she could have a reasonable guess.

She knew his name as it was on his ID. When she had first met him just days ago, he didn’t look like an Anderson. Like a Smith, maybe. Marshal Smith. With his wife, Lory, Lorelai actually, but he called her Lory, and his two children. Dana and Michael. Dana was the older. But he for sure didn’t look like a David Anderson and there were no photographs of a wife or children in his purse.

“What’s your name, child?” He looked younger now that he was standing in front of her bed, hands folded behind his back. The uniform made him look younger, she thought, not less formidable, but a lot younger. It didn’t fit him. He for sure was one who made it early and would get far, but rather in the field than in this ridiculous official uniform. He didn’t look like a politician when she first met him, but like a soldier on shore leave. Like someone with a wife, and children, and a career. Someone people demonstrated respect for what he had done. That he turned on in such kind of formal uniform now proved she had been wrong about him in the first place, she thought. He had achieved things. He was nothing like her. _She_ just wanted anything to go right in her life once.

Her look was tired but she hold Andersons gaze. Waiting. Mistrusting. Her head felt heavy. Why was he called Anderson? He looked like a Smith or a McKinnley.

He nodded, cautiously. “Trust has to be earned, I second that. But as much as you were right to trust me before with coming here, you can trust me now.”

Had they called him? She didn’t remember much of how she got here. She was on the train to Vancouver, because his ID said his unit was based there. It had been a mere surmise she would meet him there since he had been in Calgary days before, but either way she had to get out of Calgary so Vancouver was a direction as good as any other. It was a direction, after all. She had lost track on the hours she’d spent in that train, remembered a woman asking her if she was okay (of course she was) and abandoning her again when she didn’t answer. She had so hardly tried not to forget the number he’d given her. When Marcus was finished, she could still recall it. But it was no help, a number would not help her, she had to get out of there. So she did. She braced herself, managed to get moving somehow, and took step by step. Indescribable pain. And then, at some point, she collapsed. She didn’t know when.

Had she managed to ask for Anderson? Or had someone found his ID in her backpack and informed him? Had somebody informed the security? Hell, she didn’t even know where she was exactly.

There was something about his voice that made her feel calm and almost peaceful. Even more tired. It could as well have been the medics she must have been given. She didn’t feel in pain but could tell from the look he had given her there should be pain, and lots of it. They must have had her on strong painkillers. Painkillers were always something good. She had learned that the hard way.

Her mouth barely opened as if she wanted to speak but no sound came out of it. Her voice was gone, as was her strength. Tiredness lay heavily on her, quietening her voice as well as her clear mind. The sharp smell of disinfectants led her to believe she was safe in here. Far away from trouble, at least temporarily.

“She needs to rest.” A doctor stepped up to him, or maybe a nurse. She didn’t remember the woman’s face. “We will sign her in as Jane Doe for the moment. You should leave now. Come back tomorrow.”

She almost felt like drifting away again when they talked about making her a Jane Doe. Someone no one knew and no one gave a shit about. The dizziness was warm and comforting, promising to hide her away from unnaming her, protecting her from some unknown professionals making her an unknown person.

Then, a sudden voice echoed in her mind.

_Never forget what you owe me, little bird._

She winced. She was no Jane Doe, not for him. She was his _little bird_. That’s what Marcus had called her over the last years. Tenderly. Wolfish. Full of supreme contempt. It was no clear memory that bounced back that very moment, but it was an unpleasant one.

_You owe me._

She was his property. She shouldn’t be here. It would get her into serious trouble.

Her stomach convulsed painfully as the thought settled in her mind. Her heartbeat fastened, mirroring in the fastened beeping sound of the machines she was plugged to. Maybe she got out. But on what terms?

“You okay, kid?” Anderson took one step closer and looked at her with concern, ignoring the Doctor’s urgent appeal to him leaving.

She breathed heavily, trying to calm her down, telling herself that she already paid for what she had done, that Marcus already made her pay for it. It was that military, who stood in front of her, not Marcus. That military and a doctor. Some nurses, not other gang members. Beeping machines and the smell of disinfectants. Painkillers to mitigate the pain, not Hallex to increase it. She was _safe_.

“You have to leave”, the doctor repeated urgently. “Now!” She sidelined him, coming up to her bed and pressing some buttons on the machine she was plugged to. “You’re going to be calm just in a second”, she told her, but didn’t sound as friendly as he had done.

She felt her heartbeat slowing down again, still breathing heavily. Her look met that of the military. He had taken a step back but he still stood there, watching her with those dark, trustful eyes. “You’ll be okay”, he said. Trustful eyes. “I’ll come back later.”

She hardly heard him anymore. David Anderson, she tried to remember. His name was David Anderson.

 

* * *

 

It took him three days to show up again. Three days that she needed to get a clear mind again, her wounds to start healing and her body to be able to work properly without being on a heavy dose of painkillers and sedatives. She still felt in a daze every now and then and every move still hurt, but at least she was sober minded again.

The doctor hadn’t made a real attempt to talk to her after her panic attack back when Anderson had been there, leaving her to the care of two nurses that showed up at times and left her on her own device most of the time. So there had been lots of time to reason out what she had gotten herself into.

When he finally stepped through the door again, she felt both grateful to see a friendly face and relieved that he showed up again at all even though she could not really show that relief. She had already thought about what to do if he wouldn’t come back, leaving her baffled as the idea to come here had been too spontaneously in the first place. But there he was.

“I heard you’re feeling better.” He came closer, took a seat next to her bed and watched her carefully for a while.

“So did I.” It was meant to be an easygoing response, more of a try to break the ice for herself than for him, but even she shuddered on how throaty her voice sounded.

“The doc said it’d still take you some time in here, so I thought you’d need something to kill time with.”

When he handed her a book – old school made of paper, not just a file on a data pad – she turned her head away. He didn’t understand. How was he supposed to? But it was a nice touch and she hadn’t had nice touches in a while, so she forced herself to say thanks.

“Your ID is in my backpack.” Her words were totally taken out of context but she felt like she owed him at least that much.

He smiled blandly. “They passed it back to me already when they called me on Tuesday. Thanks for bringing it with you.”

 _Thanks for bringing it with you_. She almost laughed, if it wouldn’t hurt again. He thanked her for returning something she had stolen from him. She couldn’t help to slightly shake her head in disbelief.

“But having said that”, he went on in a more serious tone, “maybe we can start all over again. I don’t know how much you remember, you haven’t been in such a good state, so let’s begin at the beginning. My name is David Anderson, Lieutenant Commander of the Alliance Military, currently serving on the SSV Hastings – and on shore leave at the moment, as you have noticed. Now what about telling me who you are?”

She looked at him thinking about what to tell him for a moment. Thinking about whether or not to trust him. He sensed her suspicion and pointed at the tattoo on her wrist. “We both know this will cause you trouble if nothing happens. You’re not supposed to be her – neither to speak with me, I assume. So you can either remain silent, go back and get into even more trouble as you obviously already have been to, or you can talk to me.”

Some of the warm friendliness that he had shown until now was gone, making way for the military in Anderson. He had neither time nor was in the mood for a guessing game with an unknown teenager who was more than just obviously in trouble. If it was in his power to do so, he would help her, but she had to do her bit as well.

As if she read his mind, his voice made her tighten her shoulders, only to give a wince of pain again.

“At ease, soldier”, he said, giving her a short, slightly amused smile. “So, what’s your name?”

“Reda”, she replied.

“Last name?”

“Never needed one, Sir.”

“But you have one?”

“For sure not ‘Doe’, Sir.” Her voice was a little too snide on that one, but she had hated the doctor for calling her a Jane Doe. Last name or none, she still was herself, not some kind of unnamed Jane Doe.

“So, Reda. We’ll get you a last name later.” He simply nodded, leaving it at that for then. “Who did this violence to you?”

She crossed her arms and looked at him defiantly for a moment. She wouldn’t play this game with him. She was not here to get revenge, or justice, or anything. She was here to... She did not know exactly.

He did not expect her to tell him truth on this one but he wanted to try at least. He would get on that one later again.

“Then why the pickpocketing?”

They both knew it was a rhetorical question. He knew very well why she did it the way she did – being caught in the act was one common way of getting away from someone you didn’t want to be with anymore – but he wouldn’t do all the work for her.

She hesitated for a minute. She was going to make it definite with what she was about to say. She had wanted it for so long, had thought about it, looked forward to it for such a long time – but now it felt like standing on a rooftop and being just about to make one step too far. One irrevocable step too far.

He looked at her awaiting her answer.

“I’m... Reds, Sir. And I cannot be anymore. You looked like trouble to Reds. So I thought that’s exactly what I needed.”

“And what do you think now?”

She didn’t know how to take his reply. “Sorry?”

“You said you _thought_ that’s what you needed. Have you changed your mind?”

“I...” Hesitation again. She looked back upon what happened in the last days. She couldn’t even recall what she had done to earn Marcus’ harsh contempt exactly. Was it just the act of stealing from a military, the act of breaking one of his rules? She had done that before and he had hardly cared about it. Was it because of wanting to leave? What he did and said to her that night felt like a punch to the midriff. And worse. Because in the end, he still was family. He was all she had. It hadn’t been her purpose to upset him or anyone else. She had wanted to get out, because it was dangerous, but she did not want to lose her family. She did not want to lose everything and everyone ever close to her. She just wanted to go, to bid goodbye and go with everyone’s consent. Maybe have their blessing for starting something new. Have them be delighted for her. Just a little, like a real family. She wanted to leave, but not to be sacked.

But she had reached the point of no return. Whether she liked it or not was immaterial. She had known it wasn’t going to happen the way she wanted it. Not on her life. If she wanted to get out, it was her decision. She would find a way – just as she did. But it was them _or_ anything else. It would never be the best of both.

She shook her head, swallowing hard trying to get rid of the lump in her throat. “No, Sir.” It was a quiet desperation that spoke from her.

“How old are you?”

“Turning sixteen in April, Sir.” The _Sir_ kept her going despite the emotional chaos that rumbled inside her. It told her to keep her composure, to not let her guards down.

“Have you ever killed someone?”

That question hit her hard. She had known this would be some kind of interrogation and she had assumed it wouldn’t be pleasant but she hadn’t expected him to start this way. And she didn’t know what to return. “I... don’t think so.” That was probably nearest to truth she could come. She wanted to think she had never killed anybody. Still, it was likely a question of definition. She had problems keeping herself together and not showing any sign of shivering to the core when he asked. She had not been prepared for that.

He gave her a keen look, waiting for further reactions. Then he realized that with all well she pretended to be and with all she may had done before, in this very moment she was only a frightened girl of fifteen. Still, he needed to know. “Ever helped killing someone?”

“No. Sir.”

“Hurt someone on purpose – self-defence excepted?”

She shook her head silently. No, she had never been one for those jobs. She had done other things, those she was and those she was not proud of, but she had never harmed a living creature on purpose. There were other things she was good at.

“How long have you been in that gang?”

“Ever since I remember...” She felt uncomfortable with all of his questions. Did he have to know? But then, what did she expect?

“Never had a family? Never lived with someone before who cared for you? Aunts? Grandparents? Anybody?”

 _They. They care_ , she thought. _They are family after all_ – or rather, they have been. She realized she just lost everything she was able to count on until now, not only her home (if one could call it a home at all), her friends, her living but also everyone that was ever close to her. Even if she had not been happy with that life lately (for a very long time, when being honest), it had been better than being all alone.

When she didn’t react, he looked at her straightforwardly. “What do you expect me to do, Reda?”

In return, she just stared at her hands that clasped the blanket on her knees. She did not know. Neither did she think anything of it when she attempted to steal from him nor when she fled after Marcus’ treatment that night. It was not as if she had planned any of this. “I don’t know...” Her voice was little more than a weak whisper. “I didn’t expect anything.” _I just wanted it to end_ , she added silently. _I just wanted to go._

Anderson sighed, realizing what he had gotten himself into. “You really want to get out?”

She shrugged slightly. “There is no way back for me or I’ll end up dead.” Literally, not in a wider sense. If she went back and Marcus figured out where she had been, with whom she had spoken, it would be her death warrant. She would simply disappear – she had seen people simply disappear, without ever hearing from them again, and it had frightened her marrow-deep. She was serious about getting out, because there was no way around.

“Alright then. I can get you some help with that. But starting from this moment, you will _not go back_ nor have _any_ contact with _any_ of your old life again. Is that understood?”

She knew she had no possibility to disagree. Still she couldn’t help but hesitate. “Why do you help me?”

“We all need help at times. And I believe who asks for help deserves to get help as well.” His omni-tool beeped and he took some moment to check the incoming message. Then he folded his hands. “This is a single opportunity for you, child. Don’t blow it. I have to get back to the Hastings. I’ll make a call and get you someone who can help.”

“Whom do you call?”

He sighed. “My ex-wife. Her name’s Cynthia Barris. Think I can convince her to help you doing the paperwork, getting a job and somewhere to stay.” He stood up. “We’ll talk when I’m back on Earth again. Just wait here, Cynthia will get in touch with you.” He ended the conservation, leaving her with no room for further discussion. After opening the door, he stayed, darting her an urgent glance. “Don’t mess it up.”

She shivered. Now she owed him. He wouldn’t nickname her, she could tell. David Anderson didn’t nickname people. Nothing more than _kid_ or _child_ , which was okay for her, after all. But she owed him, nevertheless. She just hoped that young David Anderson would never claim her thanks as Marcus had done.

He gave her a quiet smile, trying to assure her everything would be alright. “I know you don’t believe it right now, but you’ll be fine, Reda.”

 _Trust has to be earned_. She would have to learn that from bottom up again. That thing called _trust_.

She still stared at the closed door long after he had left again. _You’ll be fine_ , he’d said. And paperworks. Getting a job. Somewhere to live. She would have an identity. She would be someone. Someone with the possibility of a future. And without a family.

_You owe me, little bird._

The ghost of a bitter, empty smile showed up on her face. “I won’t mess it up”, she murmured and nodded slowly. “Not this time.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, enjoying, leaving kudos and comments! As always: I did my best, but I'm not native in English and this is not beta-checked, so if anyone finds major mistakes, just leave a note.


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